Word: murrayism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...narrative toreadors are his brother,Murray Ringold, and Nathan Zuckerman, Roth'sperennial almost-autobiographer. Sitting onZuckerman's deck, burning a citronella candle,they talk, for six nights, about Ira. In the firstthird of the book, the plot of Ira's life has beensketched, and what follows is Murray and Zuckermanunpacking. Murray utters his six-night fractalintensification of detail, and Zuckerman listens,rapt to elderly Murray's deposition on his deathbrother. as a teenager, Zuckerman had taken Ira onas a mentor, and Roth is at his most interestingwhen he illustrates the knee-jerk memories evokedin Zuckerman by Murray's revelations...
Sometimes these two voices sound too alike,Murray and Zuckerman are both old, wifeless andliterate. Shakespeare is quoted. Ira's boringtirades are related in the sweet, slow molassesconversation of these two old men. The style islike the slow tourist boats that puff down theRhine, playing the uncanny Lorelei, the ballad oflove lost on the Rhine's violent rocks. It is thesort of voice Roth always does well, but it losesits punch when scattered across two differentpersonalities...
While Ira's end is obvious early in IMarried a Communist, Murray and Zuckermanrefine their interpretation of him until the veryend. This generates the book's suspense. Murray,especially, likes to draw conclusions: blanksympathy, then a view of his brother as acommunist, then an exploration of why his brotheris a communist, then of why Ira is generally sofrustrated...
...Murray talks like a teacher, throwing in vocabwords like "obstreperous" and "obviate," lingeringon tangents that are more educational than theyare relevant. Nothing makes criticism of Imarried a Communist more of a dilemma than thehalf tangential/half-conclusive speeches Murraymakes throughout. In a novel that doesn't revolvearound a climax that estranges its main characterfrom the reader by making him the subject of twoother people's conversation, Murray'sphilosophical effervescence is a rare source ofenergy. Yet, it cloys. For example, after a longdiscussion of how Ira's Estonian nurse used topoke fun at his dainty wife by daintily giving Irablow jobs, Murray mildly...
...what a 90-year-old"ace of English teachers" would say. Maybe thesemoments of reflection, springing for thestar-gazing narrators out of the past, are thebrain of Roth's book. If Ira's story seems opaque,maybe it's his brother's act of remembrance thatis tragic and exciting Murray's retellingcertainly determine the structure of the book.Roth, even when speaking through hisquasi-autobiographical Zuckerman, seems tounderstand the historiographic sacrifice thatMurray has to make to remember his brother socompletely...